


Call Our Bluff

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Albeit mild, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 06:04:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another AU of That Scene.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>I think you're lying. </i><br/>...<br/><i>Try me.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Call Our Bluff

**Author's Note:**

> It all started with a prompt asking for gay chicken. It got away from me a bit. (Albeit still pornless, hence the rating - but if you feel that's too low, do let me know.)

Physically, there’s nothing Bond can actually do in this position.

Well, actually, that’s a lie – might as well be honest with himself, if nobody else. He can do a great many things, what with the idiots only tying up his hands and – not even with one of those ridiculous knots that take whole minutes to undo. (It’s not a bad attempt, he’ll give them that, but in a way it only makes him more unsettled as to what he’s dealing with here.) However, he refuses to attempt one of his standard escapes, because if he remembers the script, this is when he saves everybody time by listening to a monologue explaining everything. To call that ‘convenient’ would be an understatement.

So he watches the latest criminal mastermind stride towards him – already bringing out the ridiculous extended metaphors, been a while since he had one of _those_ – stony-faced, allowing himself just the slightest quirk of an eyebrow. All he has to do is sit and listen; store up some quips as reminders of whom this man is dealing with. Since he surfaced once more with a hole in his chest, the script has been all he’s had to go on. Autopilot.

So he responds to the taunts and the openings the same way as ever – almost the same, less feeling than in the old days but who even cares anymore? Why bother when there’s always somebody else trying to take over the world, or destroy it, or ‘insert-verb-here’ it.

The test results are good, though. Something personal. Bond had been suspicious already, so it’s not quite the surprise he plays it as, but a fair attempt nonetheless. Bond mentally grants this Silva a few points.

Only then it all turns rather more pointed; more personal. His mask stays, but unless (well) over a decade of spying experience has failed him, there’s a glint in Silva’s eyes that suggests he sees a reaction. It’s a glint that makes Bond promise himself he won’t give anything else away, not for a moment, because facing down these people is his sorry excuse for a living, fighting with egos when he’s not shooting them in the face.

Silva moves closer and he feels his muscles clench, anything to prevent a flinch. Silva’s trying to get under his skin and he won’t let that happen.

Although it seems it’s less _under_ the skin and more right on top, fingers brushing against the bullet wound, and Bond is focusing so hard on Silva’s face to see just what this play is supposed to be. After all, he’s heard threats, and speeches, and even reflections on just how similar the two of us are, Mr Bond, once you get down to it. So far Silva’s been aiming at option number three, but the likes of Scaramanga always kept it a little more…distant than this.

That hand skates to the side, and suddenly it dawns on Bond just what direction Silva is taking this in. He’s not sure if it’s immature or impressive, because – to be perfectly frank – for a moment his mind is nothing but surprise (and, he’s not afraid to admit this, the instinctive trained masculine recoil from the very idea). It’s entirely possible that his face freezes, and this time, he knows that Silva sees it, because that smirk only grows wider, lazier, and his eyes are triumphant.

It’s that last word – _triumphant_ – that brings him back to himself.

No. He is James fucking Bond, and this is not how anybody beats him.

He glares back, and Silva looks more interested than anything else. Which is just fine. Bond knows this is yet another intimidation/interrogation technique – has to be – and he’s trained for those. Changing the sex doesn’t matter, not in a play otherwise as old as this.

Meaning that even when the hands on his thighs belong to another man, Bond hears the taunt, the bait, and without a single thought he hears himself reply, “What makes you think this is my first time?”

Silva makes a play of shock – of course he does – but then, then his eyes narrow and he’s smiling again, leaning back in, personal space already eliminated. “Funny how your file leaves out such fascinating details.”

_I think you’re lying._

Bond returns the gaze, shifts his body, finding it suddenly easy to imitate his usual swagger, even letting his legs stay that little bit more open. _Try me_. “M doesn’t like to concern herself with these things.”

“Oh, please,” Silva says, momentarily looking pained, “don’t bring Mummy into this – not right now. Bad form, Mr Bond.”

“You seemed rather eager earlier.”

“Before this little development.” Silva’s hand is back on Bond’s leg, and he resists the urge to kick out. “You always seem so determined to be the red-blooded masculine hero. It rather makes me swoon.” The hand edges further up. Bond clenches his jaw, not flinching, never flinching, never turn back.

“You think it makes any difference to me?” Stare him down. Dare him to take this further.

The hand stills, bringing both relief and disappointment, both normal but not usually at the same time. Then Silva’s face is even closer, until Bond can feel his breath on his face, warm and unsettlingly intimate. “I think that remains to be seen.” Calling Bond’s bluff. Of course.

Bond just smiles. _I dare you._

Only then Silva dares.

Bond has been shot and stabbed and threatened with lasers by his enemies. For all his reputation at home, he reflects in that moment, being kissed by them is relatively new.

Not that he is going to let Silva know this. Naturally.

Split-second decision: what to do now?

Very simple really, when facing down the enemy. He kisses back.

To be fair, it’s not kissing in the way children and adults with the expectations of children imagine it. It’s conflict; it’s pushing and pushing and yielding nothing. It’s a kiss that’s going to leave a bruise, because that’s what happens when you fight for real. Neither of them pulls away, refusing to leave a space that would feel like surrender, and so it goes on, and on, Bond’s hands clenching into fists behind him as they want to lash out and his legs going tense with the battle.

He’s next to escalate it, biting at Silva’s lip, aiming to draw blood. He tastes blood and it tastes of triumph. Silva murmurs, “Oh, Mr Bond,” but his voice is different, darker, and then his fingers are back against Bond’s bullet wound and pressing down, as if he’s trying to leave his thumb print on Bond’s flesh. Pain sparks under his touch, forcing a grimace out of him, but all he can do is focus on the oral assault, trying to win back what he can. He feels Silva’s smile against his lips, confirming it when the man sits back for a moment, not conceding anything but rather denying Bond the retaliation as fingernails dig in and _Christ_ , Bond doesn’t know how he got here or what he’s even doing anymore.

Dimly he registers pain in his wrists, tingling in his hands, and Bond realises that it’s from straining against the rope restraining him. He imagines his flesh turning white, pale against the hot pink of blood surging to the surface, and wonders just what he would do if he was free. What form the fight would take.

Silva leans in again, but now he’s biting at Bond’s neck, still digging in, and this is no good. Bond can’t fight him like this. So he tangles their legs and scrapes his heel down the back of Silva’s calf, and is rewarded by Silva halting briefly to hiss against him.

(Why not just kick him away and be done with this?)

Just for a moment, Silva looks back up at him, eyes dark, glinting like a dagger, and oh _there_ he is, the man Sévérine feared. The fear that apparently Bond doesn’t know.

He’s not afraid, though. He doesn’t know what exactly the name for this meld of anger and hatred and something else his mind is shying away from in the heat of the moment, but it isn’t fear.

When Silva looks at him in that moment, it almost feels like recognition. Something primal.

And then he rises to meet him again, open-mouthed this time, each seeking out to wound the other, another fight with the enemy, albeit on a rather different battlefield. Not so different, Bond tells himself, and isn’t sure how far he’s lying to himself and how far he’s closer to the truth than he realises. His thoughts are hazy, but that’s normal for the heat of the bloodlust. 

It’s biting and brutal and there’s nothing tender. It hardly even merits the quaint designation of ‘kiss’ – and yet, when Silva abruptly pulls away (not before Bond catches flesh between his teeth again, copper taste accompanied by a rush that makes him growl), when Bond suddenly finds himself panting into open space, a misfiring synapse somewhere reflects that it’s a more real kiss than he’s had for years.

Silva stands to regard him – re-establishing the boundaries, Bond notes automatically, employing height difference, trying to smirk in superiority when Bond can see that despite the hands tied behind his own back, that crisp white suit is looking a little less crisp now. Almost absent-mindedly, it seems, Silva runs a thumb across his lower lip, and Bond smiles his killer’s smile when it smears blood.

“What a relief,” Silva muses, voice back to its irritating lilt but eyes still promising. “I was beginning to think all the fight had bled out of you already.”

A gesture, and suddenly Bond feels new life rushing into his hands as his bindings fall away. Yet Silva is moving away, announcing a tour, and it seems whatever game that was, it’s over now.

Bond’s disappointed. It had felt good to be in battle again, visceral, bloody, regardless of the exact form it had taken.

Still. With that sort of a start, there’s always room for round two.


End file.
